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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by John on behalf of Murial Gray and has been added to the site with her permission. Murial fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Talk with Murial E GRAY - Her Memories of the War
This year being the 60th anniversary of the end of WW2 brought many memories back — both good and bad.
My parents, myself, and two brothers, were on holiday in Weymouth the week before the war was declared, but no one seemed to realise the situation. But as we came home to Bristol things were obviously serious.
The following day, a Sunday, my sister and I went to chapel as usual. Someone had brought a wireless - as they were always called — and we heard the announcement at 11 o’clock by Chamberlain, the Prime Minister that we were at war with Germany. We had no idea what the future held. We soon discovered - with the first blitz — on 24th Nov 1940, which was my father’s birthday, and we were warned what life would be like in the future.
My father was in the Home Guard and on duty many nights. We all had a shelter underground in the garden where we slept at night, which was very fortunate the night the ceiling fell on my bed in the house. This was the night when a bomb had fallen on a timber works on the opposite side of the road. There was a public shelter beneath and everyone was evacuated from there — by a miracle noone was hurt! However a small boy was in the care of a local air-raid warden, and she brought him out and took him to her home a few minutes away. But just as they reached it, a bomb fell and killed them both.
The worst of the blitzes for us was at Easter 1941. On Good Friday a bomb was dropped where the roads crossed — I think it was a land mine. It brought down 6 or 7 houses on each of the ‘arms’ of the crossing. Most of the people were safe in their shelters, but the couple who had the little corner shop could not be found. Many people worked in desperation to find them right through until Easter Monday when they were found. They had obviously been coming home and heard the bomb coming. They knew they couldn’t reach their home and dashed into a neighbour’s shelter, knowing that they were away. The shelter was completely covered in rubble etc, but the couple was inside — unhurt but dead in each other’s arms having been suffocated.
British Airways (?) moved down to Bristol from London — for safety! I was lucky enough to work for them in the Signals Office, and eventually to go back to London with them. One day I received a message that one of our BOAC planes had been shot down in the Bay of Biscay. One of the passengers, who was travelling under a false name, was the actor, Leslie Howard. It was said that the Germans thought that Churchill was travelling in the aircraft under a false name. I gave the message to the Operations Dept and shall always remember all the staff sending commemorative messages to the next of kin.
To begin with we were several floors up in ‘Airways House’, in Buckingham palace Road, but with the advent of the ‘flying bombs’ we were moved down to a safer place. We went into the ground floor room that opened out onto the platform of Victoria Station.
All the staff came down — Operations, Code & Cypher Dept, Signals etc - quite a crowd! One night we were working when we became aware of the sound of a ‘buzz-bomb’ - then the noise stopped — this meant that the bomb was falling! We all turned round and said ‘ Good-bye, good luck’ and dived under our desks! There was the most tremendous explosion — the ‘Safety Door’ blew open and there was chaos everywhere! We stood up, brushed the dust off and looked around. We had all been extremely lucky, the people the other parts of the station had not!
But there were good things to remember. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ decided that it wasn’t safe to remain in London when the blitz started. The Schools Section and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra came to Bristol! Every Wednesday evening the broadcast concert by the orchestra was attended by the public in the Colston Hall and was very popular. A contingent from my school went every week- in school uniform, of course! We sat behind the orchestra according to which instrument we played —0 I was behind the cellos — so we could watch them. Sir Adrian Boult saw us there week after week, (price 1 shilling & 3 pence!), and asked his secretary to find out which school we attended. He then telephoned the headmistress and the music mistress and said they should just find out how many tickets were needed, and his secretary would have them waiting for us when we arrived!
From this a really wonderful time began for us! We went to every concert, then we went to the studio concerts that were broadcast during the week! Our school choir recorded the hymns for the School services on Fridays. We went on to do a special programme when America came into the war; each of the countries whose citizens had gone to America over the years was mentioned, and either a folk song or a hymn from that country was to be sung by us. We were rehearsing in the morning, to be recorded in the afternoon. I was singing the Song from Bohemia, and the actress who was to make a small speech before had not arrived, so I was told to do the speaking part as well as the singing! This was the high point of my life!
We continued to have this happy relationship with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ — chatting to Paul Beard and other members of the orchestra as we went up to the studio! I remember one broadcast concert from the Studio that was especially memorable. Just a few minutes before the programme was to start, the chief announcer, Stuart Hibberd found that his microphone was faulty. So they put a chair on top of a table and Stuart in full evening dress did the necessary reading of the programme, and the items played, with a completely straight face and with absolute control whilst sitting in the gods!
At another studio concert, the local announcer, Peter Fettes, announced the next item on the programme — ‘Overture — William Tell’. He then switched off his mike, turned his chair round and then (fortunately a long way out of earshot) started to gallop up and down the studio to the sound of the music! We, of course, were near the microphones, and mustn’t make a sound!
Altogether it was a wonderful experience and added a great deal to our memories.

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